First Sunday in Advent

Richard Davenport November 27, 2022 - Advent 1 Romans 13:11-14 I've never been very good at dreaming. There are times I wake up and have a sense I was dreaming a lot at night or that I didn't dream much at all, but I very rarely remember my dreams. I know we aren't really wired to remember dreams, but some people are better able to hold on to them than others. It's something of a skill that can be trained too, but I've never put my mind to getting better at it. If I remember a dream at all, it's usually because I've been woken up suddenly in the middle of one. I'll remember being a secret agent or a guy in a business meeting who somehow is then on the run from people who chasing him up a skyscraper, or living in a house that's my house and yet looks nothing like any house I've ever been in and I'm grilling burgers for some party but I don't know what the party's for. You just never really know what's going to happen. I think it would be fun to be able to record dreams and watch them again while you're awake, just to see what sort of surreal stories your brain cobbles together. Still, it can be pretty disorienting when you wake from dreams like that and have to take stock of your surroundings. Where are you? What time is it? What day is it? Most days once you come to and figure out where you are, things aren't so bad. For me, most days you can kind of go on autopilot. The alarm goes off and I'm going to get showered, get dressed, and help get Paul out the door so he gets to school on time. Even with that, not all of those days are the same. Sometimes the work week is a little wonky. The other days of the week are also a bit of a toss up. Things change from week to week. Sometimes those days off are lazy days to relax and enjoy family time. Sometimes they're days to get stuff done around the house. Sometimes they're days out and about running errands. Laurie is usually better at tracking things on the family calendar. So, I'll usually be looking to her to an idea of what to expect for the day. If there's nothing immediately forthcoming, then it seems the morning at least is mine to do with as I please. Maybe I'll sit in bed for a little bit and read my book. Maybe I'll check the news and see what's going on in the world. Maybe I'll pick away at one of the various writing projects I've got going. I decide my own direction because I don't have anything really pressing that needs to be done. "The night is far gone. The day is at hand." Waking from sleep. It's time to be about the work of the day, life in the Spirit and the needs of your spiritual family. You wake up each day and do...what? As a pastor I could maybe make the case that spiritual stuff is what I do most of the time but that certainly isn't every day of the week and that doesn't help anyone else make sense of the day either. So you "wake up" as it were. Night is ending and the day is at hand. God has led you out of darkness and into the light. That's all taken care of. Just like the sun rising, God has sorted things out to get all of this handled. You look around and see it is daylight. Now what? There's no "to-do" list waiting for you. There isn't even a basic list like "get dressed." You probably have things that might be a good idea to do. Even on those lazy days it's generally a good idea to get cleaned up, get breakfast and some of that basic, every day stuff. Likewise, there are spiritual things everyone should generally do just to maintain a basic level of living. You should go to church, maybe pray or read a devotion from time to time. Aside from that, there's nothing specifically addressed to you. So it sounds like you can manage the day however you want. That means the agenda for the day is your own. You could spend the day being productive, maybe reading your Bible or going to an LWML meeting and working on a project or something like that. But, since you have no specific "to-do" list it's really up to you whether you want to devote your day to doing those sorts of things. But, since no one has left a list addressed to you, it seems you're free to just kick back and relax. Have a seat in your lounge chair and let life just happen. Why worry about it? You've got what you need. You've got nowhere you need to be. Just enjoy yourself. There are a number of times in the Bible where God gives out these general directives to his people. "All of you need to go do this." Well ok, that's fine. It's something that needs to happen, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm the one who has to do it. You find that sort of thing as Jesus gives the Great Commission to the disciples before his ascension. "Go there and make disciples..." The command is plural. He's speaking to all of them as a group. So, as long as the command is being carried out, no big deal. Someone needs to do it, but that doesn't have to be me, or even if I do have to do it, maybe I just need to worry about it once in a while. Maybe the disciples can take turns, trading off now and then to make sure someone is still getting some work done. Or, perhaps they contract the work out to someone else. I mean, if the work is getting done, then what does it matter who is doing it? Now, that sort of command is still in effect today. God still expects the church to continue carrying out this work of making disciples. All right. Fair enough. There is work to be done, but who needs to do it? If the order doesn't specifically have my name on it, then I just need to make sure someone is doing the job. That could be someone else here, it doesn't have to be me. Or, better yet, maybe I just make sure to help fund a missionary or church planter. They're doing the work and I'm making sure they can do it, so mission accomplished. Since I know the work is getting done, I have nothing to worry about. Time to relax! Well ok, you might try and make that argument. However, there are many other times in the Bible where God doesn't talk to the people as a whole, times where he doesn't allow you that loophole. In Exodus 20, God gives the Israelites the 10 Commandments, along with a number of other ordinances for how they will live, worship, and conduct business. "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You shall not murder, etc., etc." Though he speaking to the assembled people of Israel through his prophet Moses, God speaks to them in the singular, as individuals. He looks at each person he has called to be his people and tells them each, "You shall...and you shall not." In short, he has given you a "to-do" list, you specifically. Luther reminds us that the commandments aren't just a list of things not to do, but also a list of things we should be doing instead. Each of these commandments has been given to each of us, a list of things that need doing, that we need to be work at each day. We want the loopholes. We want to relax. If there's work to be done, we want someone else to do it. But no one else can do your work for you. They've each been given their own list of things to do. There's no time for laziness. There's no time to sit and watch the world go by when that very world is full of anger, abuse, jealousy, depression, fear, pain, and death. The world is full of sin and by our laziness we not only allow it but add to it and we attempt to foist our own work on those who are trying to make a go at their own list of things to do. It's interesting to think about how God's plan of salvation works. God promises to send a savior to take our sins away and he does. Could God have forgiven our sins some other way? Perhaps, but he sends his Son to die on the cross to save us. But Jesus isn't born to just run to the cross and die. If that was his only purpose, he could have done that just about any time. Why wait until he's in his 30's when he could just as easily die on the cross in his 20's or even his teens? But he doesn't. He lives a life, a life that goes from infant, to child, to adult, learning and growing, doing all of the things people do. He was born as a human not just so that he could die, but also so that he could live and live perfectly. He does the work each of us should be doing every day and he does it without fail. He does all of that and only then goes to the cross, all so he can he can offer what he does every day without fail in exchange for what you fail at every day. His perfect life in exchange for your imperfect one. His work that covers up your lack. He offers himself for all the times when you've offered nothing. St. Paul directs us to "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ," not as an escape from our responsibilities, but as an acknowledgment that we have not lived up to them. We acknowledge that without Jesus to work on our behalf we would be guilty of not fulfilling our obligations and would be thrown out with the trash. We must admit our laziness, our lack of interest, our desire to avoid responsibility to be exactly what it is. It's there we find grace and forgiveness. The penalty that should be ours is taken away and given to the one who did all of the work on our behalf. Jesus comes to live not just his life, but yours, and to live it perfectly. As we begin Advent, we look to the birth of Christ in human flesh. We know his journey is to the cross, but there's a lot he does along the way. Even the day to day life he lives, he lives for you. He lives as a human being, living a human life, a perfect life, but a human life. Each and every day he does the work given to him by his Father, just like your Heavenly Father has given to you. We make the mistake of thinking only certain things count as spiritual work but, as Luther discovered, everything we do has a spiritual component. Everything you do throughout the day says something about who you are and what is important. Living a life that cares for the needs of others is a life that shows the love of Christ to those around you. All of it is important. All of it matters. So we look at St. Paul and see he is talking to each of us. Night is over. It's time to wake up. God has given you important work to do. You will fail. You will get it wrong. But Christ the savior is there to walk beside you with his grace, to strengthen and support you as he continues to do his Father's work, just as you do.